Jochen Zeitz
Former Chairman & CEO, Puma, Co Founder & Co Chair, The B Team
What do you do when you’re entrusted the reins of a large multinational at the age of 29? Well, not 29 actually, because Jochen Zeitz asked the board to announce his elevation as Puma CEO when he’d turn 30 a couple of months later. This way, some would think he wasn’t too young to lead. But one could say it was Jochen’s youth and maverick spirit that actually gave him the foresight to unite the streams of changing business and changing the world.
Embedding sustainability into the DNA of Puma’s business, Jochen brought about many new paradigms. He then took these paradigms to the world’s largest brands from Gucci to Harley Davidson. The journey also led him to The B Team, an initiative he co-founded to promote socially and environmentally conscious business practices. What the world needs now is practical optimism, and that’s what Jochen brought to his Confluence keynote.
Key Takeaways
To one day abandon the word itself
How can doing good become core and not consideration? When we rethink the word sustainability itself in terms of quality. Every business must now ask: is the product or service good if it is not sustainable?
Measure the costs of doing business with nature
It’s not what you control within the enterprise: take a walk along the supply chain, measure the environmental impact, and assign a monetary value. Tracking this from source to aftersales can turn intention into holistic action.
Build for the context of now and next
What was sensational yesterday may not be sensible today. It’s time for companies to revisit even their core product characteristics. Whether it’s fur coats or fuel engines, what’s the alternative to stay relevant and design a new future?
Sustainability is a standard to set
Rather than worrying about sustainability as a must-do, business leaders must recognize the need to make sustainability a benchmark that others must rise to. That’s the true opportunity: call it green ocean thinking if you will.
The new role of business is a sustainable way of doing business.
